


Juvenescence

by Kahika



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Coming of Age, F/M, Gen, The Reaper War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 05:02:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4947712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahika/pseuds/Kahika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah Williams is six when she starts aikido on Ferris Fields, ten when her father's transferred to Amaterasu's token garrison and the whole family moves planets for the third time in her life, eleven when they go to the beach and they complain and fight over nothing but their mother hugs them and says it's a good day, eleven when her oldest sister enlists in the Alliance navy straight out of high school and starts only coming home for a week of mandatory leave every year.</p><p>She's eighteen during the Eden Prime War and twenty-one during the Reaper War.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Juvenescence

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://ladiesofmasseffect.tumblr.com)[ladiesofmasseffect](http://ladiesofmasseffect.tumblr.com) and [](http://omegastation.tumblr.com)[omegastation](http://omegastation.tumblr.com)'s Rare Female Characters Week.
> 
> This started life as meta pointing out her estimated age during the game events which impact her, but then all my headcanon about her life that I couldn't work into my main fic universe fell in.
> 
> References events from [my _Relay Monument Incident_ fic universe](http://archiveofourown.org/series/254344) but can definitely stand alone.

She's six when she starts aikido on Ferris Fields, ten when her father's transferred to Amaterasu's token garrison and the whole family moves planets for the third time in her life, eleven when they go to the beach and they complain and fight over nothing but their mother hugs them and says it's a good day, eleven when her oldest sister enlists in the Alliance navy straight out of high school and starts only coming home for a week of mandatory leave every year.

She's fifteen when she dates Mike, fifteen when she realizes he's not taking no for an answer, fifteen when she uses her aikido outside of the dojo for the first time, fifteen when Ashley takes emergency leave to come home and walk her to school, fifteen when it hits her that the woman who seemed to be somewhere between sister and mother but always older and always someone to rebel against before she became a once a year houseguest for shorter amounts of time than her father - that woman actually does have her back.

She's fifteen when she breaks Mike's nose, fifteen when she doesn't flinch at all the blood and just helps him stop it, fifteen when she tells Ashley to call the ambulance, fifteen when she watches the paramedics start in on him and thinks, _I could do that,_ fifteen when Mike grabs her arm and apologizes and she forgives him.

She's fifteen when her oldest sister goes away again and fifteen when she starts writing her regularly, because Lynn's often worried vidmails must be exhausting, so someone's got to bring a little more fun into Ashley's life even if it's long distance.

She's fifteen when her father dies of a heart attack of all things, fifteen when they bury him with a line of "Ulysses" on his gravestone ( _I am become a name_ ), fifteen when her mother decides that they're staying on Amaterasu, fifteen when everything starts to matter more because she’s not just moving away in a year or so.

She's sixteen when she decides she's going to be a nurse, sixteen when drama which can't be fixed by breaking someone's nose explodes through her friends while none of her sisters are around to talk to (Ashley's stationed far away, Abby's on exchange on Inta'sei, Lynn's at school), sixteen when she tries the hardest she ever has to play mediator.

She's seventeen when she reaches shodan.

She's eighteen when Ashley sends her a photo of the 212, eighteen when she writes back that James is cute and Ashley should go for him, eighteen when Ashley writes back saying that he's transferred and besides, that's fraternization. (She's eighteen when she wonders if Ashley will ever meet someone who will make her happy without breaking regs.)

She's eighteen when she first lays eyes on Serviceman Third Class Thomas Taualii, some grunt on medical leave her school's gotten in to talk about the Alliance on career day along with the usual recruiter, and she decides she's not going to listen to him, not only because she already knows what career she wants but because she's not one for the military life, for the moving and the fighting and the distance from your loved ones and the superiors constantly against you because of something that happened eight years before she was even born.

She's eighteen when she and her friends stop at the Alliance stall for the free pens, eighteen when Thomas speaks to her personally, eighteen when she realizes that for a navy guy he's actually really hot. She's eighteen when he wheels into the drugstore she works at afterschool looking for sunscreen and ends up staying until closing to talk to her between customers. She's eighteen when she discovers that she has way more in common with a military man than she thought (for starters: the same birthday a year apart, the same sense of humor, the same 'recovering quasi-spacer' approach to life), eighteen when that military man asks her out for coffee, eighteen when she invites him to one of her aikido demonstrations and he makes her a sign. She's eighteen when they meet each other's families. She's eighteen when she falls in love.

She's eighteen when the crew of the _Normandy_ ends up on the news vids, eighteen when she vidmails her sister about how cute Kaidan is because she isn't giving up on her big sister's love life, eighteen when she gets a mortified e-mail back about Commander Shepard catching that part of the vidmail.

She's eighteen when she and Thomas decide they're getting married as a joint confirmation of fact rather than with a proposal, eighteen when their parents say that's insane because they've only known each other a few months and he'll redeploy soon and long distance military relationships are harder than they think, eighteen when they shrug and say they'll marry two years from now, just to prove that they can make it.

She's eighteen when she's the one who takes the call from the Alliance saying that the _Normandy_ was destroyed but initial reports say that Ashley made it, eighteen when Ashley herself confirms it, eighteen when Ashley refuses to take the leave the Alliance offers her and instead goes straight on to a new post, eighteen when for three months all communications from her big sister are distracted and grief stricken.

She's eighteen when she graduates high school, eighteen when she and Thomas set a date but only tell his best friend and her oldest sister (the only ones who responded to their engagement with more congratulations than doubts), eighteen when he redeploys.

She's nineteen when her friends start to scatter to other colonies on other planets, nineteen when she starts her nursing degree, nineteen when everything on her placement clicks and she knows this is what she's meant to be doing.

She's nineteen when the fairy tale falls apart, nineteen when the distance and the time difference wear on her, nineteen when she refuses to let it go because she's a Williams, damn it, nineteen when she learns how to be with someone without being with them. She's nineteen when she and Thomas start dabbling in couple's omni-tool apps, nineteen when he starts putting some of his out of system sync allowance towards calling her, nineteen when she starts sending two care packages at a time for the first time in four years.

She's twenty when she loses a patient, not because of anything she did, but because the ward she's placed on might as well be a geriatric ward. She's twenty when her abuela, the most vocal source of bitterness about Shanxi in her family, passes away. She's twenty when she feels guilty because the former upsets her more than the latter.

She's twenty when Thomas gives her a ring, twenty when they announce their engagement to the rest of the world, twenty when they start really planning their wedding, twenty when she tries on wedding dresses and swoons for one that's out of her price range, twenty when she looks at photos of flowers in between paragraphs of long assignments.

She's twenty when her mother says they're moving to Earth, twenty when she complains that it's a pain to transfer schools to a whole different system and what about her wedding, twenty when it turns out Ashley called with intel about an enemy targeting human colonies, twenty when Thomas confirms it from another mission. She's twenty when they pack up and move yet again. She's twenty when her mother pulls some strings to get her a new wedding venue in her hometown of San Juan, twenty when her future father-in-law jokes about moving to Puerto Rico and teaching them fa'ataupati.

She's twenty-one when she marries Thomas, her in a Scarlett Jane knock off, him in his dress blues, and it's not the way they started planning it but it's a blend of their cultures' traditions and surrounded by family and friends and love so it's _perfect_. She's twenty-one when they sign the paperwork to change their surnames to Taualii-Williams, twenty-one when Ashley (her only sister without a date) gives a speech at her reception which she assures her was not cribbed from history class, twenty-one when her cousin with the quarian boyfriend catches the bouquet.

She's twenty-one when they go on their honeymoon to Nevos, twenty-one when they spend the first day in bed, twenty-one when they try asari food in that oceanfront buffet out of curiosity, twenty-one when they fly out to Quirezia to take photos of the Necklace.

She's twenty-one when the Reapers attack Earth, twenty-one when she can't get a hold of her mother or any of her sisters, twenty-one when her husband gets called back into action, twenty-one when she ends up alone in the Silean Nebula on her honeymoon. She's twenty-one when she takes the call from the Alliance saying that her big sister almost died on Mars but is being treated on the Citadel, twenty-one when she spends what should have been souvenir money on out of system calls, twenty-one when Ashley wakes up and tells her to come to the Citadel so they can wait for news together.

She's twenty-one when she travels alone to the Citadel on whatever transport she can find, more packed than they were on the way to Nevos because everyone's trying to get away from the Reapers. (She's twenty-one when she points out to a few of them that the Battle of the Citadel three years ago was against a Reaper.) She's twenty-one when she sees her big sister, who always tried to protect them, pale and bruised and barely able to get out of bed. She's twenty-one when she rents an apartment on Kithoi Ward with some of the money she and her husband were supposed to spend on their new life together and some of Ashley's injury pay.

She's twenty-one when she gets tired of watching Ashley struggle back to her feet while she waits and does nothing, twenty-one when she tries to transfer to the local nursing school and gets turned down because no one can get in touch with her school on Earth, twenty-one when she asks Huerta Memorial if there's anything she and her year and a half of nursing studies can do, twenty-one when they let her shadow a registered nurse, twenty-one when she starts learning anatomy and biochemistry for the Citadel races because oddly enough, nursing school on a human colony only covers humans.

She's twenty-one when her family gets off Earth but are still limited on how often they can call because the refugee centers are so full. She's twenty-one when she realizes she's a refugee. She's twenty-one when the Alliance calls her to say that her husband was killed in action against Reaper forces on Demeter, twenty-one when she very politely thanks them for informing her and then rips her omni-tool off her arm and throws it across her sister's hospital room, twenty-one when she curls up in the corner of the room and cries and cries and cries. She's twenty-one and she's a widow. She's twenty-one and she hates the Alliance but more than them she _hates_ the Reapers.

She's twenty-one when her big sister becomes a Spectre in her hospital room and twenty-one when she goes to watch her official induction ceremony in the Council chambers. She's twenty-one when she goes straight back to the hospital the next day because the Citadel's started taking refugees and she has to do _something_.

She's twenty-one when the Citadel is invaded by Cerberus, twenty-one when every asari staff member of Huerta Memorial uses their biotic abilities to form a barrier over all entrances and windows, twenty-one when she realizes that the self-defense training her parents wanted for her and the shodan rank she earned because she loved it cannot stop bullets and grenades. (She's twenty-one when she hefts an IV pole and decides she could use some aiki-ken techniques with one.) She's twenty-one when Cerberus retreats and she stays at the hospital because there are so many more civilians who were hurt, and she's twenty-one when they let her actually touch patients because there's too many of them to waste a half-trained pair of hands.

She's twenty-one when Ashley comes into the hospital smelling of medi-gel and tells her that she's leaving on the _Normandy_ , twenty-one when she finally gets tired of smiling because she's lost her husband and could still lose her mother and her sisters because Ashley told them to move, twenty-one when her big sister slaps her and then apologizes. She's twenty-one when she checks her e-mail and finds that Ashley's arranged for C-Sec trainers to teach her how to use a gun and sent a voucher for her to get her own once she's licensed. She's twenty-one when she starts learning what had always been either a military thing or Lynn's thing, because she doesn't want to ever feel that helpless again. She's twenty-one when she buys a shield generator and starts wearing it under her clothes.

She's twenty-one when she finally receives her dead husband's tags wrapped up in an Alliance flag, twenty-one when she stands in front of the memorial wall while her big sister tells the story of their trip to the beach, twenty-one when she pins one of his tags to the memorial wall on the Citadel and starts wearing the other.

She's twenty-one when she thinks her sickness is just her immune system finally giving in to the stress of the war and twenty-one when the nurse who's become her mentor asks her how far along she is. She's twenty-one when she does the math. She's twenty-one when she realizes she still has one more thing left of her husband inside her. She's twenty-one and she's going to be a single mother in the middle of a war.

She's twenty-one when her sisters and her mother and her in-laws make it to the Citadel at last and she's _finally_ not alone while the _Normandy_ flies around the galaxy. She's twenty-one when she gets her firearms licence. She's twenty-one when her mentor talks the local nursing school into allowing her to transfer in with whatever records she can access online. She's twenty-one when she finally feels like she can do this, even though there are more and more refugees and soldiers of every species in the hospital every day.

She's twenty-one when Ashley calls to say goodbye, just in case, because the _Normandy_ 's going to Cerberus's base and then they're going to Earth.

She's twenty-one when the Reapers finally invade the Citadel and twenty-one when she thinks she can see _Earth_ through its artificial atmosphere. She's twenty-one when C-Sec cuts off all ground access to the Wards to try and limit the Reapers' movements, twenty-one when she and her family hole up in her apartment on Kithoi Ward, twenty-one when Lynn, who'd always been nervous about pistol practice, headshots a husk.

She's twenty-one when a shockwave tears through the Citadel, twenty-one when the streets are covered in debris, twenty-one when a turian transport picks up her family and brings them to Earth, twenty-one when Abby's yelling about her pregnant sister gets a medic's attention, twenty-one when they tell her she didn't lose the baby.

She's twenty-one when the Reaper War is over, and twenty-one when they start to rebuild.


End file.
